Recently, there has been an increased demand for portable devices to collect atmospheric samples for chemical analysis. Currently, several types of portable samplers exist, such as that disclosed in PCT Publication No. WO/2006/062906, which is hereby incorporated by reference. Other examples of portable samplers may be found at U.S. Pat. No 7,171,312 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,321,609.
Often these samplers suffer from a variety of drawbacks. For example, in many applications, the sampler must be decontaminated after sample collection but before analysis of the sample. In current applications, however, it is often difficult to decontaminate the sampler without affecting the sample since introduction of common decontamination cleaning agents into the sampler can destroy the collected sample. In addition, often the location where the sample is stored in the sampler is subject to contamination from other sources if not properly sealed. Further, the samplers often have no ability to store information regarding the sample or environmental conditions in the sampling environment. Thus, the operator must separately record this information. In some instances, this information is either not properly recorded or is not properly correlated to the correct sample.
It is accordingly an object of the disclosure to address these issues with handheld samplers.